


This blood on my hands

by FancifulRivers



Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Poisoning, Self-Harm, Suicide Attempt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-18
Updated: 2015-12-18
Packaged: 2018-05-07 08:02:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 855
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5449307
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FancifulRivers/pseuds/FancifulRivers
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes things change.</p>
            </blockquote>





	This blood on my hands

**Author's Note:**

> I just have many feelings about Chara, okay? 
> 
> Spoilers probably.
> 
> I haven't played the game yet, but I've been reading so much meta and theories and headcanons about Chara and I just...have very strong feelings about them and how they are not evil.

It hurts.

It hurts more than you ever dreamed it could. You knew what buttercup poisoning looked like. You thought you did. You knew it would be painful, messy. 

It's hell. You can't do it. You know you can't do it anymore, you know that you should tell Toriel, you should tell Asgore, tell someone,  _anybody_ , but then Asriel looks at you, and you can't.

You have to fix everything. You have to free them. Your life has to have some meaning. Your plan will work. You just have to have the determination to see it through. It's what you wanted, anyway, isn't it, when you climbed the mountain? You were supposed to die then, but now you have a purpose. 

Blood bubbles at the corners of your mouth as you curl up into yourself, pain stabbing through your middle. Your palms are a mass of sores and blisters but you wrap them around yourself anyway, under your shirt so that you can pretend that you are keeping Asriel's clothes fresher. 

Asriel's room. His bed. His clothes. His family. His house. His life.

You've taken everything from him, haven't you? The realization makes you laugh, but it's hollow and choked and bitter, and you start coughing up blood in the middle of it, and feeling the liquid spatter against your cheeks makes you laugh harder. Asriel runs in, rubbing your back and whispering that it will be all right, but it won't be.

"Please, Chara," he whispers, but you shake your head. 

"I want to see the flowers," you tell him. It's not a new plea. He looks at you, and there's something old in those tear-damp eyes that you cringe back from against the sweat-soaked pillow.  _What am I doing,_ you think, horror mixing with strange exhilaration. You're hurting him more than you're hurting yourself, and how is that even possible?

_I want to help you, I want to help the monsters_ , but are you? Are you really?

The garden is nice.

Asriel leaves you alone for a moment and your hands scrabble across the dirt, sores breaking open against the ground as your straining fingers finally stumble across another buttercup. It is a risk (such a risk, it is always a risk) but you must stick to the plan, you have to  _ensure_ -

"Chara, what are you doing?"

Panic bursts through you, white hot and cleansing, and you roll over, staring wide-eyed and bloody-mouthed at Toriel. This time when you laugh, it sounds like screaming.

* * *

They don't say anything about it.

That's the worst thing. You expect condemnation. You expect yelling and blows and being shoved outside, abandoned. You don't deserve to be here anymore (did you ever?)

It doesn't come.

Toriel gives you medicine every day, holding your hair back for you when you heave into a basin, recoiling when blood spatters the sides. Her paw pads are soft against your back. Asgore makes you tea, just the way you like it, and even though your stomach cramps when you drink it, you still do.

Asriel stays in the room with you the whole time.

You don't understand why. He plays with his camcorder- not recording this time, but turning it over and over in his hands. He reads to you, though you can never remember the stories after and sometimes you wonder if he's making them up as he goes along. He hugs you when you cry and hugs you harder when you start laughing again, wheezing for breath as your ribs twinge and you rub your palms together to feel the scars rough against each other. Knitting is painful now, but you persevere anyway, remembering the proud look on Asgore's face when you presented him with the sweater you made for him, lumpy and awkwardly shaped as it was. He still has it, he still wears it, and you don't know how to feel about it.

"Why won't you kick me out?" is the constant, lingering words on your tongue, that die unspoken every time Asriel bumps your shoulder with his, every time Asgore looks at you with big, wet concerned eyes, every time Toriel hands you another pill to take.  _Why won't you let me die?_ curls at the back of your throat, thick with regret.

Another human falls into the same patch of golden flowers. 

You spend the next three days lying tense and fully dressed under your covers before you finally believe the Dreemurrs that they aren't going to replace you with someone better. Someone more whole. When Asriel wakes up, you launch yourself out of bed, clumsy and panic-stricken, crashing into his soft, furry warmth and unable to feel the tears sliding down your cheeks.

"What is it? What's wrong?" he asks, frantic, but you just shake your head.

"Replacement," you hiccup, because you can't say anything else, the flood of words in your head tangled in itself, trying to push out of your still-broken mouth. "Not-"

"You're my best friend, Chara," Asriel tells you. "I'd never replace you."

It takes longer than it should for you to realize the feeling flooding your body is relief.


End file.
